Workers With Names: Honoring Your Colleagues Like Romans 16

Some thoughts regarding the long-lost art of honor, showing gratitude to your colleagues & co-laborers, and why "it's always better when we're together."

**painting above is “Church Interior” by Cornelis Van Dalem (1570).

Perhaps you are the kind of person who often wonders within the confines of your private mind, “gosh, people are such a nuisance.” I often agree with you, but the goal of this short piece is to remind you and myself that we are both (often) misguided.

Last year, I read a book by Justin Whitmel Earley called Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship. It’s an excellent book (really, all of Earley’s stuff is excellent), and I won’t attempt to summarize it all here. But what I will say is that the title of this book may be exactly what we both need to hear this morning: we were made for people.

What’s particularly challenging about Christian living is that we were made for all people, not just the people we choose. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously stated in his seminal work, Life Together: “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” In other words, we cannot get caught up in the illusion (what he calls “the wish-dream”) of Christian community. Wish-dreams are dangerous.

Here’s the modern wish-dream of community: church pews full of people who look, think, and speak just like you do. An office where no one annoys you / no one asks repetitive & generally irritating questions. A home where kids don’t scream, disobey, or spit food onto your freshly-painted walls. A friend group that pumps you up and tells you want you want to hear. Frankly, this is often my wish-dream.

But the wish-dream of community is not the beloved community in which the drama of our human lives plays itself out. Christian living is not a curated community that makes the challenging nature of biblical principles easier for us, nor is it a set of theological ideas in our heads that never make their way into our (often-frustrating) relationships with other people.

Christian living is embodied with people. Your colleague, your roommate, your spouse, your neighbor, your barista, your bus driver, your banker, your boss, your pastor, your politically-inclined aunt who, for whatever reason, still lives in your Facebook comments; these are the people with whom, by God’s great providence, you are called to live out “life together” alongside. It is the people right in front of your face, even if you wish they were not.

This has significant implications. And because that is true, you all reading this will likely have some rebuttals: “But Ben, I just get so doggone irritated with this one guy I have to work with”…“No, you don’t get it! My roommate’s boyfriend is so rude!”…“My aunt is literally the worst.” I get it. But I also have this hunch that the Bible does not call us to live life with a paper trail of people that were inconvenient, or “toxic”, or frustrating for us. Quite the opposite.

It seems to me that in the book of Romans, some of the Christians had trouble understanding the very high communal calling to “love one another” in the midst of a community that was difficult to love. This is why the Apostle Paul reminds the church at Rome that, “…not all members have the same function”, and “…love one another with brotherly/sisterly affection…outdo one another in showing honor.” Paul then has the audacity to charge the believers that they are to, “…live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:4, 10, 18). Not some people; all people.

At this point, I want you to think about the “all people” part of that charge from Paul (yes, including the other parent on your kid’s soccer team that needs to take a chill pill). All people. Who are “all people” in your life?

To live peaceably with them (as Paul suggests) seems an impossible task. How could we possibly rewire our hearts, brains, and words to love people like Paul is suggesting? His answer can be found in the way that he concludes his letter to the Romans: show honor.

Honor is a long-lost art in our cultural moment. We inhale the dishonor of others and fatten our consumeristic bellies at their expense (no, seriously: who among us hasn’t watched an Instagram reel or Tik Tok video of someone getting beat up, dissed, or embarrassed?). Dishonor is delicious and en vogue. Honor is antiquated and hokey.

Yet, as Christians, honor is the thing we are to “outdo one another” with. It is one of the hallmarks of Christian living. Which is why I was moved to tears this January when reading through Romans 16, a catalogue of the people in Paul’s life who he felt were worthy of honor.

Here is Romans 16. It is lengthy but profound. It almost reads like a “sea of faces”, but it is so much more:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.”

Paul lists (give or take) about 30 names. Just a bunch of names, right? At face value, we miss the force of the honor he is showing. I can’t imagine our bible studies in Romans pend too much time unpacking the way in which he is signing off here.

What I’m trying to say is this: it ought to be noteworthy to us, that in what is perhaps the most influential book of the New Testament upon the whole of western society, Paul takes a moment to honor the chorus of unheralded saints that made his ministry possible. He gives a shoutout to his community.

Rufus, chosen in the Lord. Mary, who worked hard. Apelles, approved in Christ. Epaenetus, first convert to Christ in Asia.

What Paul's conclusion suggests is what we often ignore as moderns: we need one another. Our digital enclaves forget that Rufus, Mary, Apelles, Epaenetus, and so forth are the very forces that make us who we are.

As Justin Whitmel Early states, “God designed us to need people. you cannot experience God the way you were made to until you experience him alongside others.”

The co-stars in the Pauline drama of grace, justification, salvation and so forth are people like Persis, Stachys, and Aristobulus. Likely not a “wish-dream” of community for Paul, but people that he learned to love. People to whom he showed honor. Honor is the way we defy our cynicism, irritation, and “wish-dreams” of community. As Pastor Jon Tyson once declared in a 2019 sermon, “We are exhausted by the devaluing of others but feel powerless to stop. I believe there is a cure for the cancer of contempt: honor.”

Honor is not “blowing smoke.” It’s not artificially gassing someone up. Honor is certainly not being your boss’s bootlicker. Honor is not shown so that we can experience “good karma” or enjoy the old deistic adage that, “what goes around comes around.”

Honor is declaring and reminding your people (and ultimately, yourself) of their God-givenness. We defy the despotic reign of slander, gossip, malice, rage, and enemy-making when we show honor. It’s a crucial tenet of Christian living. The life of Jesus (the man whom we say we are mimicking, if we call ourselves Christians) was full of showing honor to those whom we daily cast aside in dishonor.

And Paul reminds his readers here that, if we are going to live like Jesus, honor as an antidote to “wish-dreaming” will help us get there. That’s why he shows love to Herodion. That’s why he gives thanks for Tryphaena and Tryphosa. That’s why Philologus, Julia, and Nereus are all worthy of gratitude. In the words of Chicago Bulls guard Coby White, “that’s so love, bro!” (side note: this little video of Coby gushing over his UNC teammate Cam Johnson is actually a great modern example of honor).

I don’t know who in your life needs honor for their “God-givenness”; but allow me to remind you with this little blog post that they are worthy of honor. And “Romans 16 living” will challenge you in moments of workplace gossip, roommate slander, or marital infighting…it will challenge you to believe and (live out) that there is a truer, better way for human relationships: the way of honor.

Paul wasn’t the only church father to pick up on this idea of honor. Good ‘ol Simon Peter kicks off his first letter to the elect exiles by saying, “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God” (1 Pet. 2:17).

So today, I’m trying to show more honor. I am thankful for my beloved Emma, who I adore. For little Rosie. For Derek, and his patience. Jansen and Jonathan. Jon, Sully, and Malissa and their steadfastness. Claire, for her heart. Jake and Lexie, for their joy. Markus and Ted. Westy, Linq, and Jordan. Matt and Annie. Woods. Josh, Kiera, Chad, Nate, Mike. Our gracious neighbors: Steph, Cam, Courtney, Ivan, Irina. Jayme, Allison, Annie, Jordan, Laurel, Joseph, Lydia, Sammi. Honor to the guy at my gym who corrects my deadlift form (need to learn his name, but shoutout nonetheless). For my parents. For Emma’s parents. For our grandparents, still clinging to life. For Lawrence, who moved on into glory this week.

And so many more. Honor.

I don’t know who those names are for you, but take a few minutes to honor them today. “Them” could be your boss, your in-laws, your mailman, or your elders. Regardless, remind them today that they are made in God’s likeness - even if (or perhaps especially if) they have frustrated you as of late. Shoot them a text, simply to tell them that they are worthy of honor.

“Honor the image of God. Human beings are not accidents, but creations.” - Timothy Keller

Keep going.